Politics in this country, as in most
others, is a complete clusterf**k. Despite the passionately
contested battles between our legacy parties for political dominance
every few years—and the venomous and vile attack ads that
inevitably accompany them—most people I know, regardless of their
political affiliation, don't seem to feel that they have much affect
on national, or even state politics. There is an odd paradox between
the heated pronouncements of our politicians, on the one side, and
the icy disconnection most people feel toward electoral politics, on
the other. The reaction of most folks to even their own party's
candidate in any given election is more often than not a disaffected
and noncommittal shrug. As we say on the interwebs, “meh.”

Inevitably, if the person is interested
in politics at all—and most people are, at least a little
bit—they'll give you the old saw about the lesser-of-two-evils.
The “he's a bastard, but he's our bastard” mentality.
This is actually a politically sophisticated view of things, in that
it at least has the honesty to admit openly what our political system
has become: evil...with bastards running the show.

The cynicism with which most people now
greet campaign promises, knowing that all are inevitably negotiable
and prone to change (depending on factors usually involving money
and/or matters of personal convenience) just goes to show the utter
lack of legitimacy our current political class has acquired in the
eyes of most. Our elections have become essentially debates over
which of the liars is going to lie the least about what's
really going on — which corrupt official is the going to leave
the most behind when he or she is done looting the country and
selling off the best parts to their friends?

Given that this is the case, it's
hardly surprising that the outcomes for most of us have been so bad. [1]

The point, however, isn't to belabor
the brokenness and backwardness of the political system as it now
exists—or to bemoan the perverse policies (and bailouts) this
brokenness has led to—but rather to present another option for how
we might organize ourselves politically that avoids entirely this
whole morass of big money, special interests, and lesser-of-two-evils
defeatism. The idea I would like to suggest we try is a simple
one—one that should be familiar, at least in principle, to all
Americans—it's called “democracy.” Perhaps you've heard of
it...

Imagine a political party with no
national platform—a party where local rank-and-file members select
candidates from among themselves, and dictate the policies those
candidates will support. [2] Imagine a political party whose
candidates are transparent; one that guarantees every member an equal
voice in shaping the actual policy proposals—and the votes—of
their representatives. Imagine a political party whose focus is on
empowering the rank-and-file members, instead of the charismatic
con-artists we call politicians. Imagine a political party that runs
on direct democracy, from bottom to top: open, transparent and
accountable.

That, dear friends, is what I am
suggesting.

Just a few years ago, this idea might
not have been thinkable, but widespread adoption of mobile
technology, even among people with lower incomes, makes creating a
truly grassroots driven political party—without the need for big
money or expensive political consultants—a real possibility.

First I'll describe the basic ideas
behind this new structure, and then we'll get to the technological
implementation.

In our party, the platforms of the
local candidates will be decided by the members through face-to-face
and on-line dialogue and discussion, and on-line voting. If someone
has a policy proposal, they submit it for discussion, debate, and
amendment; if the proposal gathers a preponderance of support from
the members, it becomes a local policy position.

Candidates are nominated by the members
in their district and have the obligation to submit and vote on
legislation only in line with the positions of the local party
chapter, once they are elected. In office, the job of the
representative is to present and explain legislation up for vote to
the members, and, in cases where the proper vote is not clear from
the local positions, to have the local party vote on which way the
representative should cast their vote in the legislature. Our party
will not only allow, but encourage real-time interaction and
meaningful participation from the members in the daily work of
legislating. This will give members the chance to actually effect
the votes of their representatives in a meaningful and transparent
way.

The candidates in our party will be
contractually obligated to represent only the preferences of
their constituencies, regardless of their personal opinions or
interests. Any candidate failing to do so will be recalled at the
soonest possible time. In this way of doing politics, the political
candidate is not the leader of the party, but merely the spokesperson
for her or his constituents.

Compare that to both Democratic and
Republican representatives, who spend most of their time on Capitol
Hill schmoozing with lobbyists and dialing-for-dollars to fund their
next campaign, when they'll do their darndest to convince enough
voters that they are the lesser evil and to put them back in
power for another term...which they plan to spend schmoozing with
lobbyists and dailing-for-dollars.

There are two essential ingredients
necessary for this plan to work: 1) the dissaffection of enough
people with the maneuverings and continual disappointments of both
major political parties, and their willingness to join a party that
offers first and foremost, a direct voice in the political process,
and; 2) the willingness of these people to put in the energy and
effort to get as many people involved as possible. For reasons I'll
explain a little later, the more people involved in the project,
whatever their political views, the more successful this project—this
party—will be.

Also, we'll need an app...maybe two.
More in a little while.

To be continued....

[1] Full-time jobs are still below their pre-crisis peak, some six
years after the crash; overall job numbers have caught up to and
surpassed previous peaks only thanks to the BLS's habit of counting
anyone working at least one hour of paid work per week as
“employed.”

[2] Rather than the other way around,
which is how we do things currently: i.e. the candidateselects the rank-and-file (D or R) and dictates
the policies to support to them.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

One of capitalism's greatest coups and
most resounding victories has been the successful combination of both
the master and slave mentalities within nearly every individual among
the working classes of the population. Under the current capitalist
system, each person has become their own master—has become their
own slave.

Under the old system, the slave was
made to work so that the master might have material abundance. The
master had ample time to enjoy this abundance, since s/he did not
have to spend her/his time working—that was the slaves' job. From
the capitalist perspective, this type of system presents a problem in
that the amount of goods the master and his/her household can consume
is relatively limited, even in the most opulent cases. Additionally,
resources devoted to the maintenance of slaves are unavailable for
use by the capitalist.

Were there more masters to purchase
goods from the capitalist, the slave system would not present such a
problem—but more masters would also require more slaves to serve
them which would, in turn, reduce the amount of resources available
to the capitalist and impede his/her ability to take advantage of
this larger market of masters. What to do?

The Capitalist system has solved this
problem quite elegantly, by replacing the external, interpersonal
master/slave division with an internal, intra-personal one. This has
had the result of increasing the number masters, who can purchase the
output of the capitalist process, without increasing the number of
slaves needed to sustain them, thus leaving resources plentiful and
inexpensive for capitalist exploitation.

While this solution has proven quite
useful for the capitalists, the effects on the working classes have
been less salubrious. Whereas, in the former system the master had
ample time to enjoy the material abundance provided by his/her
slaves, the new master/slave hybrid does not have the same luxury.
Being also his/her own slave, this new type of person is expected to
both work like a slave and to have material abundance, like a master.
The abundance is in vain, however, as being also a slave, he/she
lacks adequate time with which to enjoy the abundance that slavery
produces.

The result for the working-class
master/slave is an unquiet conscience. Whereas a mere slave knew
better than to seek fulfillment in material possessions, the
master/slave hybrid is imbued with no such wisdom. S/he has adopted
the value system of the master and so seeks fulfillment in material
wealth, but is unable to enjoy it due to the constant lashing of the
slave aspect of the self—to drive it to work harder to provide more
wealth for the master aspect. This disjointed self of the modern
working-class human, enmeshed in capitalist society, far from
representing an overcoming of the previous slave-based economy, is
rather the pinnacle of its ascendancy.

Under the old system, the slaves would
sometimes rebel against their masters, turning against their
overseers and disrupting the entire system of wealth extraction. The
new system is superior in this regard—at least from the point of
view of the capitalists—in that revolt against one's own self is
infinitely more difficult than rebellion against an external
authority. Thus, disruptions are kept to a minimum in the new system
of slavery, where every man is his own servant, every woman her own
oppressor.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Leadership is good. Leaders are bad. Cultivate leadership. Do not seek to become a leader.

A leader is someone who thinks they are in a position to make decisions on behalf of a group. Leadership is the quality of knowing how to help a group make a decision.

If a group has many leaders, they will accomplish nothing. Each will want to make decisions for the group as a whole, and thus the whole group will be divided and diffuse and never carry out any of the decisions made.

If a group has many who display leadership, then the group will accomplish much. They will find making decisions easy; they will move as one unit, one force. They will discover their collective will and carry out their collective decisions.

Leadership is effective, leaders are a hindrance. Cultivate leadership, and do not seek to become a leader.

Yves Smith, as she is prone to do, added her own pointed commentary on the piece: "How about “mainstream economics needs an overhaul”?"

To which I say, indeed. And more than an overhaul even--this rig is due for an entire rebuild, from the ground up. Here's what I mean by that:

I just finished reading a wonderful little book, Michael Lebowitz's Build it Now! Socialism for the Twenty-First Century. Highly recommended. Lebowitz's main contention is that the problem with capitalism--and I would say also with economics--is that is concerned solely with the creation of more capital. Socialism, on the other hand, is concerned with ensuring that each individual is allowed the possibility of fulfilling their highest potential. Capitalism, as well as mainstream economics, is concerned exclusively with the production of financial wealth (I might add "and material goods" to that sentence, except that material goods are only considered "good" if they can be turned into financial wealth, else they are seen as waste or loss). Socialism, by contrast, is concerned with the development of human potential.

Number and money, on the one hand; human development on the other. Unless and until our economy is based around the latter, we will continue to suffer, as a species. Unless and until economics as a discipline places human development and the study of how best to achieve it at the heart of its enterprise, our thinking about life will continue to suffer (and the whole planet along with us).

Predictably, and sadly, the suggestions being put forth for changing the mainstream economics curriculum, as presented in the Vox EU article by Diane Coyle, the "Managing Director of Enlightenment Economics" (a job title that should, perhaps, give us pause) include only the following:

Some economic history, which could be integrated into existing courses, especially macroeconomics;

An introduction to other disciplinary approaches;

Possibly ‘tasters’ of the frontiers of academic economic research with potential policy application, such as behavioural economics, institutional economics, and post-crisis developments in financial economics;

Awareness of some of the methodological debates in economics;

I will leave it to you, dear reader, to guess what "some" and "more" will entail in practice ("More economic history,"..."some methodological issues"), but notice that all of the proposals stay firmly within the framework of measuring (and therefore judging) all parts of our economy on the basis of the same things that the mainstream currently judges them on: namely, GDP, unemployment statistics, interest rates, inflation/deflation, spending and investment...i.e. numbers and money.

A new economics, if anyone is interested in such, must start from the premise that our economic system exists to promote the fulfilment of human potential--to ensure each has the opportunity to develop to their highest possibilities, however they happen to define them. Numbers and money are means to an end--possible tools that we can use to better accomplish our goal of human development--but once they become seen as the ends in themselves, our thinking veers wildly off track. The results of such thinking we see around us everyday, in the homeless and jobless, the stressed and unhealthy, as well as in those with wealth who still manage to suffer, despite having "made it."

Lebowitz's book is definitely worth the read, and much cheaper--and more to the point--than a lot of other econ texts currently available. Read it, share it, talk about it, and above all build it. We need to rebuild economics from the ground up, and this is one place (maybe the one place) to start.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

The UC Berkeley News Center has an article up now on the university's new course on "Buddhist Economics." While I welcome any addition to the economics course curriculum that addresses the intersection of economics and ethics, I think the limitation of the course to Buddhism is somewhat faddish and needlessly limiting.

That aside, I also found some curious sentiments being expressed by the course's instructor, one Claire Brown. Professor Brown has apparently been studying Buddhism (whatever we take that to mean) for six years. Despite the fact that Prof. Brown is teaching a course on Buddhism and Economics, she does not seem to have actually understood the issues that arise. Perhaps it is a defect of the journalism and Brown's views have been somehow misrepresented, but I find this unlikely since the views that Brown appears to hold are quite common among Western Buddhists (and liberals generally).

Take this quote that appears directly after the Don't Spend, Be Happy subhead which lays out a number of cogent (and potent) questions that Buddhist thought poses for economic theory and practice:

“In the traditional economic model, it makes sense to go shopping if you
are feeling pain, because buying things makes you feel better,” Brown
wrote in her class syllabus. “Yet, we know from experience that
consuming more does not relieve pain. What if we lived in a society that
did not put consumption at its center? What if we follow instead the
Buddhist mandate to minimize suffering, and are driven by compassion
rather than desire?”

This is a hopeful start; Prof. Brown is, in my opinion, asking the right questions here. But a throw-away line that ends the article makes me think that she might not have figured out what the solutions to these questions might look like.

Brown assured her students that Buddhist economics
wouldn’t require a vow of poverty. “Buddha tried to live in poverty for
seven years,” but “it didn’t work,” she said.

Uh…actually the historical Buddha tried extreme asceticism and wrote that
off as a blind alley. Asceticism: as in bodily mortification, extended
fasting, etc. After Buddha gave up that route (still a popular one on
the Indian sub-continent, btw) and adopted the “middle-path,” he and his
disciples still spent time every day begging for alms: even in ancient India, that was a sure sign of poverty.

Here’s the thing: if you consume only that which you actually need, restrain yourself from activities that harm other life, and devote your life to easing the suffering of others, you will necessarily
be considered poor. You will have given your excess wealth away to
those poorer than you, your dwelling will be simple, your lifestyle
spare. Not because you’re an ascetic, but because you have your
priorities in line.

Buddhism is appealing to Americans largely, I think, because it
doesn’t seem to demand any material sacrifice on the practitioner’s
part. Americans like Buddhism because they’ve (mis)interpreted its
message to be it’s ok to have lots of stuff, just so long as you aren’t attached to it.

For instance, there is a Marriott Hotel heiress living not 50 miles from me
that has gained the title of “Lama Tsomo,” despite being a
multi-billionaire (I’m looking at you, Linda). Supposedly, she’s
trying to become a bodhisattva, whose mission on earth is to end the
suffering of all sentient beings. Apparently, however, no one has hipped
her to the fact that her 4.1 billion dollars could ease a whole lot of
suffering, if only she could find the strength to let it go. But no, she
prefers to teach meditation classes since, you know, all suffering is psychological and you just need to be detached and whatnot. Convenient, that.

Western Buddhism’s focus on personal non-attachment and psychological
‘growth’ all too often turns into a “blame the victim” mindset. What’s
that you say? You’ve just been laid-off from your job and diagnosed with
cancer? You don’t know where your next meal is coming from and you
can’t afford to see a doctor? You should try meditation and detachment:
nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. Your suffering is all
in your mind! Don't blame the government or their corporate overlords for your misery, it's just your karma, embrace it…..which is way easier than actually trying to help someone improve their
situation. Also it makes you feel superior, since you’re so much more
wiser than those suffering sots.

The problem, of course, isn’t with Buddhism, but rather with academics like Brown who try to sugar-coat it for Western consumption, although I assume they do this unwittingly.

The deal with any religion is this: if you take it seriously as the most
important thing in your life, you won’t worry about material
possessions and you won’t need to take a vow of poverty. Prioritizing
your spiritual development will make it easy to not notice, or care, if
you become officially poor. As material wealth is not your goal, so too
its absence will not be defeat. But Buddhists like Brown think that you can
have your cake and eat it too: the material wealth as well as the
(mostly BS) non-attachment to it.

The facts of the matter are that if you are not attached to wealth,
wealth will not attach itself to you. If you prioritize your spiritual
development, this will not cause you consternation.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Raising the minimum wage is in the news again, and with it, lots of economists disagreeing about what the effects will be. For every study showing a minor negative effect on employment, another is presented another showing a minor positive effect. Into the fray has stepped the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) with a dedicated website devoted to educating people about the horror that raising the minimum wage will apparently be.

The top of the website displays a picture of Bill Gates with the caption "why isn't the President listening to this guy?"--not a good start. Reading further, it only gets worse:

Employees that earn the minimum wage tend to be young, and work in businesses that keep a few cents of each sales dollar after expenses. When the minimum wage goes up, these employers are forced to either pass costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices, or cut costs elsewhere–leading to less full-service and more customer self-service. As a result, fewer hours and jobs are available for less-skilled and less-experienced employees.

Many businesses that pay at or near minimum wage do, actually, have decent profit margins and claiming that increasing wages "forces" businesses to pass on the costs to consumers or reduce staffing is simply ridiculous. A business could also reduce pay-levels of upper management, decrease dividend payouts, stop buying back their own stock, etc. The framing also seems worded to encourage the reader to think of a small business, when in fact most people work for large corporations, who are sitting on mountains of cash right now, btw.

Minimum wage increases do not help reduce poverty. Award winning research looked at states that raised their minimum wage between 2003 and 2007 and found no evidence to suggest these higher minimum wages reduced poverty rates. While the few employees who earn a wage increase might benefit from a wage hike, those that lose their job are noticeably worse off.

Notice that it is not mentioned which award this research won or who was giving it out. And then, of course, winning an award (even a prestigious one that you would feel comfortable mentioning by name) doesn't guarantee the accuracy of your work. Barack O'bomba, for example, received a Nobel Peace Prize...so I think you see my point.

And as Prof. Sprigs discusses at 6:58 in the video below, studies of the effects of minimum wage have by-and-large either shown no effect or little effect on employment; sometimes that minor effect is positive and sometimes it's negative. Often, it is statistically insignificant. Which is what you would expect when looking for the effect of a single variable in a complex, densely inter-twingled system like our economy.

Employees who start at the minimum wage aren’t stuck there. Research found that the majority of employees who start at the minimum wage, move to a higher wage in their first year on the job.

Again, they don't say specifically what research they are referring to, nor do they provide a link to it so that a reader can consider it on its own merits. It's also worth keeping in mind that most economic "research" was calling for smooth sailing into the indefinite future...right up until the entire financial system imploded. One should always take economic research with a grain of salt--numbers are easy to manipulate, and perfectly legitimate mathematical operations can provide you with totally illegitimate conclusions. The numbers, as my old college adviser used to say, never speak for themselves.

Also, having extensive experience in the low-wage sector, I can give you a little hint for understanding that last claim about most workers moving to a higher wage within a year. Some years back I got a job as a nursing-home housekeeper. Starting wage--$7.25/hr. My raise after six months of, by all accounts, stellar job performance--$0.10/hr.

Just an educated guess here, but I bet the research this website is referring to would claim that my extra dime per hour was "moving to a higher wage."

Here is a much more realistic discussion of the likely effects of raising the minimum wage:

Spirituality for the Differently Saned

Hi there. This blog which, I SWEAR, I will be updating regularly from now on (at least once a month, really) is a sampling of my thoughts, in poetic and prose format, of matters of spirituality, politics, the environment, social justice, economics, etc. Whatever strikes my fancy. I AM NOT trying to spread any particular religious or spiritual dogma, but rather to spark thought and dialog on matters that are all too often neglected by our contemporary society. In the words of Kierkegaard, "as regards that which each must do for themselves, the best that one person can do for another is to unsettle them." If you like what you find here, great, tell a friend or twenty. If not, fine, just make like Google and keep searching.